Monday, 13 September 2010

siafu ant

I would not like to be in the path of these little basterds.

They are the only ants that are known that can kill and consume a human being. Each colony can contain over 20 million individuals. As with their New World counterparts, there is a soldier class among the workers, which is larger, with a very large head and pincer-likemandibles. They are capable of stinging, but very rarely do so, relying instead on their powerful shearing jaws.

Seasonally, when food supplies become short, they leave the hill and form marching columns of up to 50,000,000 ants which are considered a menace to people, though they can be easily avoided; a column can only travel about 20 meters in an hour. It is for those unable to move, or when the columns pass through homes, that there is the greatest risk. There have been reported cases of people—usually the young, infirm, or otherwise debilitated who could not escape—being killed and eventually consumed by them, often dying of asphyxiation. Their presence is, conversely, beneficial to certain human communities, such as the Maasai, as they perform a pest prevention service in farming communities, consuming the majority of other crop-pests, from insects to large rats.

One case of a couple out in the bush of Africa left their infant asleep in their tent. They then heard the shrieking of their child. When they rushed in, swarming ants covered the child. Luckily their child survived. They are capable of de-fleshing small animals like frogs within minutes. Even though they can be nasty if you’re stupid enough to get in their way, they do have their resources. They’re used as sutures to close wounds. Their heads are placed over the wound where their large pincers bite the flesh. The head is then decapitated from the abdomen, and the head will then remain for days acting as a suture for the wound.